Soviet Downing of Flight 007 Recalled--Kremlin Was Silent for 5 Days

The downing of an Iranian airliner over the Persian Gulf on Sunday brought to mind the incident five years ago in which the Soviet Union shot down an unarmed Korean airliner, killing all 269 aboard.

In both incidents, Washington and Moscow insisted they had acted properly in self-defense and both insisted that the doomed planes ignored warning signals and were out of their assigned air corridors.

But in contrast to the hours of Soviet tracking of the Korean Air Flight 007 on Sept. 1, 1983, followed by five days of Kremlin silence on the incident, the U.S. warship that downed the Iranian airliner feared it was under attack and had only minutes to respond in the heat of battle. And news of the tragedy was swiftly made public by American officials.

The U.S. government’s admission Sunday that it mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner can be both compared and contrasted with the Soviet Union’s belated confession that it downed the Korean airliner.

Large Death Toll

Iran’s official news agency said the death toll in the gulf incident was 290.

Both superpowers said that--despite their advanced radar systems and other missile-age technology--they were unable to tell that the planes were commercial airliners rather than military planes. In the Soviet case, a pilot even saw the plane at close range before firing a missile that knocked it out of the sky.

And both American and Soviet leaders implied in their statements that their armed forces might have to shoot down another airliner if the same circumstances occurred again.

“If airliners do not pay attention to the warnings and guidance we put out--that poses a problem,” Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in announcing U.S. responsibility for the destruction of the Iranian airliner.

Warning to Iran

“I don’t understand the responsibility of a country . . . that flies a commercial airliner over an area where (military) attacks are under way. . . ,” Crowe added in an obvious warning to Iran that it would be taking a risk if it allowed its commercial airliners to fly over the Persian Gulf during naval combat there.

Similarly, Andrei A. Gromyko, who was Soviet foreign minister in 1983, warned in a similar vein after the KAL episode: “We state: Soviet territory, the borders of the Soviet Union, are sacred.”

But there also are strong contrasts in the circumstances surrounding the tragic episodes--notably the swift acknowledgment of responsibility by President Reagan and his expression of condolences to the families of the victims.

No Apology, Compensation

It took the Soviet Union five days to admit that one of its jet fighters fired the missile that destroyed the KAL jetliner as it flew in Soviet airspace, more than 300 miles off its course on the way to Seoul. To this day, Moscow has refused to apologize for its action and has never extended sympathy, much less compensation, to families of those aboard the ill-fated flight.

Secondly, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes was in the heat of battle when it fired two missiles at the fast-approaching Iran Air Flight 655 that its sophisticated computers had identified as a hostile Iranian F-14 warplane. Its commander had only minutes to decide whether to protect the ship and the crew by launching the missiles, according to the Pentagon’s first official account of the Persian Gulf incident.

Crowe said that the Vincennes acted properly in self-defense, adding: “They do not have to be shot at before responding.”

No Combat in Progress

In contrast, Crowe noted, a fundamental difference with the KAL 007 incident was that there was no combat in progress anywhere near the Soviet Union’s Pacific frontier in 1983, and the Korean plane was never accused of taking threatening action. The Soviets, however, tried to justify their action by maintaining that the Korean aircraft was on an intelligence gathering mission.

“The fundamental difference, of course, was that it was not a war zone,” Crowe said at a Pentagon briefing Sunday. He also said that the KAL plane was flying at a very high altitude--like a commercial airliner would--while the Iranian airliner was descending from 9,000 to 7,000 feet and picking up speed as it neared the American warship.

Also, Soviet air defense units tracked the Korean plane for 2 1/2 hours as it flew off course over the heavily fortified Kamchatka Peninsula and Sakhalin Island before the order was given to shoot it down with an air-to-air missile from a jet fighter.

Crowe insisted at a Pentagon news conference that the Korean airliner was not warned “in any form or fashion,” but Soviet authorities said at the time that tracer bullets had been fired as a warning after the plane did not respond to radioed demands for identification and an explanation for being where it was.

Another contrast: The KAL plane was shot down on the eastern border of the Soviet Union. The Iranian airliner was destroyed within 50 miles of the Iranian coast, or halfway around the world from the borders of the United States.

Strong U.S. Rhetoric

Some of the strong rhetoric used by President Reagan and other high American officials after the KAL 007 tragedy, however, may come back to haunt them.

Reagan termed it “the Korean airline massacre,” and he added: “We want justice and action to see that this never happens again.”

On the day the Korean plane was shot down, Secretary of State George P. Shultz said: “The United States reacts with revulsion. . . . We can see no excuse whatever for this appalling act.”

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, who was then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said: “There was a shocking disregard for human life. They (the Soviets) have spoken as if a plane straying off course was a crime punishable by death.”

Congress unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the Soviet Union for a “cold-blooded, barbarous attack . . . one of the most infamous and reprehensible acts in history.”

Expressions of Outrage

While this public expression of outrage was going on, however, top U.S. officials had concluded privately two days after the KAL flight was shot down that the Soviet armed forces believed that the plane was an American Air Force reconnaissance aircraft and not a civilian airliner.

Their conclusion, reported more than 18 months ago by the State Department to Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said this did not absolve Moscow of responsibility for the tragedy, however.

“The Soviets had an obligation to identify the aircraft before they shot it down,” Assistant Secretary of State J. Edward Fox wrote to Hamilton. “The pilot who downed it should have been able to identify it. . . . The bottom line is that the Soviets, through their own ineptitude, probably were not certain what type of aircraft they were shooting down.”

Similarly in the case of the Persian Gulf accident, Crowe said the crew of the Vincennes thought they were firing missiles at an attacking Iranian F-14 jet.